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The Case for Keeping San Francisco’s Disputed George Washington Murals

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Exposure to art — even uncomfortable art — is healthy, stimulating, and worthy of students’ debate. Image The San Francisco Board of Education voted to cover “The Life of Washington,” a mural cycle from 1935-36, at a school named for the first president. Victor Arnautoff’s  frescoes include images of slaves and a dead Native American, which angered some students and parents.  Credit Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times By  Roberta Smith , The New York Times July 26, 2019 512 After half a century of intermittent debate and protest, the  San Francisco Board of Education   voted unanimously  in June to whitewash the 13 murals depicting the life of George Washington that line the halls of a high school named for the first president. The murals’ offense is that they depict some ugly truths about the history of the United States, namely two of its original sins: slavery and the Native American genocid...
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How the Kremlin Is Militarizing Russian Society

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With a “youth army,” a cathedral honoring the military and state media promoting patriotism, the government is preparing Russians for the possibility of a fight.   image from article:   A mural in Moscow showing members of Yunarmiya, or Youth Army, an organization associated with the Defense Ministry.   By Anton Troianovski , Ivan Nechepurenko and Valerie Hopkins Photographs by Sergey Ponomarev , The New York Times , Dec. 21, 2021 Updated 7:57 a.m. ET [jb:  original article contains links and additional striking photographs ]; see also (update) MOSCOW — Stepping onto a podium in heavy boots and military fatigues at a ceremony outside Moscow, six teenagers accepted awards for an increasingly important discipline in Russia: patriotism.  For days, students from around the country had competed in activities like map-reading, shooting and history quizzes. The contest was funded in part by the Kremlin, which has been making “military patriotic” education a priorit...
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How Sir Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth I Made England a Global Power

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  Image from article: Queen Elizabeth I knighting Francis Drake, 1581. Credit...Alamy   Book Review by Nigel Cliff , The New York Times , March 10, 2021  IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire By Laurence Bergreen England is a nation divided. In one camp, nationalists decry the diabolical threat to their freedom posed by dastardly Continentals, instead throwing their hopes on a shadow empire of boundless trading opportunities. In the other, pro-Europeans bitterly protest that their country is making a cataclysmic mistake and bide their time. Sound familiar? Just kidding. It’s not Boris Johnson’s Brexit Britain but the England of the late 16th century, the subject of “In Search of a Kingdom.”   In Laurence Bergreen’s colorful assessment, an unlikely alliance between Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake empowered English Protestants to see off Continental Catholics and stake out the beginnings of the British ...
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